War Paint
by sheriffandsteel
Summary: Modern AU When Gendry accidentally stumbles into a Stark family game he is thrust into a battle of wits and wiles. He thinks he might actually be having fun if only Arya would stop glaring at him for five minutes.
1. Addition

Hands down, the best part about his gym was the water pressure. Gendry didn't understand how the water pressure in his own shower could be so abysmal when compared to that at his gym when the buildings were only a few blocks away from each other. The showers alone made the price of his membership worth it.

Gendry ran a hand through his still damp hair before waving goodbye to Podrick at the welcome desk. Podrick returned the wave before turning back to his book. That was another good part about his gym, it was never very crowded.

He was busy debating if he wanted to stop for food before making his way back to his apartment or if he had anything there that he could scrounge up a decent meal with. Gendry was pretty sure he had a box of mac and cheese in one of his cupboards. He was just deciding to go and get food just to be safe when he pushed open the door to the gym and there was a sharp sound like someone throwing rocks at a steel door.

Gendry started in surprise at the sound and if his gym bag had not been strapped over his chest, he would have dropped it in shock.

He turned to see a petite woman glaring at him behind clear plastic glasses. She was dressed in all black workout gear like she was about to play a game of nighttime hide and seek or complete an assassination. The clothing was not out of place considering she was standing in front of a gym but the reason Gendry kept staring at her was because of the large paintball gun in her hands.

She looked at him disdainfully for a moment before looking past him to snap, "Careful with that! Civilian shots cost ammo."

Gendry turned to look at the person she was addressing and found a teenage boy with wild brown hair smiling at him sheepishly, a large paintball gun in hand.

"Sorry. Thought you were Theon."

The girl to his left snorted and Gendry turned back to look at her in time to see her roll her eyes. "Yeah because they look so much alike."

Gendry was just opening his mouth to tell them it was okay or to ask them what the hell they were doing he wasn't honestly sure, when he caught sight of people creeping towards them around the cars in the parking lot. He could make out another paintball gun in a red headed girl's hands.

"That lot with you too?" Gendry asked, nodding with his head towards the parking lot. He did not miss the brief look of excitement and fear that crossed the boy's face as the woman spared one quick glance out at the parking lot half full of cars. As she did so the people among the cars began to run towards them.

The two next to Gendry took off at a sprint down the sidewalk, heading towards the end of the shops in the row. He wanted to shout after them that there was nowhere to go in that direction but he assumed that they wouldn't want the people currently chasing them to hear him.

Cursing Gendry sprinted after them, not even sure why he was bothering. He had no idea what the hell these people were up too but he was currently the only one of them not armed. They might have just been paintball guns but still. Those could hurt.

He darted around the last building and yelped when a hand closed around his wrist and pulled him down behind the recycling cans. The woman from before glared at him and put a finger to her lips, motioning for him to keep quiet. She did not let go of her hold on his arm until he nodded.

Gendry nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden sounds of a paintball gun being fired and he braced himself for the sting of the bullets. He had been paintballing only once, for his half-brother Eddric's 17th birthday party. That had been a few years ago but Gendry still remembered the welts he'd had up and down his back when a group of his half siblings decided to corner him.

Looking back over his shoulder he saw a different red-head than the one he had seen in the parking lot. She was firing at the others who were now ducked behind the wall of the building, sticking their guns around the corner to shoot at her. She avoided their shots with ease.

"Don't just sit there. Get movin'!" the redhead snapped, the boy moved quickly at her voice and the woman beside Gendry made to move as well.

Gendry reached out and grabbed her wrist before she had stood fully.

She tore her arm away from him before his fingers had even closed. "What do you want? Can't you see we're busy?"

Gendry chose to ignore her rude tone. He didn't know why he was even bothering trying to get involved with, well whatever in the Seven Hells this was, but he couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "I know somewhere you can hide. It's close by."

"We can't take outside help." the redhead called softly as the shots coming in her direction stopped. She stopped firing as well but she did not lower her weapon. The boy stood beside her, the gun in his arms raised too.

"We are one short." the boy mused but Gendry didn't take his eyes away from the woman crouched in front of him. Up close he realized that her eyes were a deep stormy gray. He tried to shake thoughts of how pretty her eyes were away, now did not seem to be the time.

She huffed out a breath of annoyance before nodding and raising to her feet. She pulled Gendry up with her as well. "Take us there. Quickly."

Gendry couldn't remember a time he had run through the city at such speed. He took them behind the buildings they had been hiding behind and then across another parking lot. They darted across a busy street looking over their shoulder more than watching for cars. Finally, Gendry turned and led them down a narrow alleyway, the tall walls on either side making it dark even though it was still early afternoon.

"Is your plan to kill us all?" the gray eyed woman asked causing Gendry to roll his eyes at her.

"In case you haven't noticed I'm the only one not armed." he retorted trying to pretend he didn't notice how she was pointing her gun at him.

He cast one last look down the alley to make sure they weren't followed before opening the door under the small wooden sign proclaiming, _The Holdfast._

It was thankfully empty save for a few regulars inside but if Gendry was being honest it was always this empty no matter what time he came there. It was why he had thought to bring them there. Daavos looked up from the glass he was wiping down to wave at him. He didn't even blink an eye at the paintball gun toting trio with him.

"You should be safe here. It's pretty far off the beaten path." Gendry said as he motioned them towards an empty booth in the back.

"Set a timer." the redhead reminded the boy as she slid into the booth. "I think we lost the others but we should wait a moment to regroup."

"What the hell are you guys doing anyway?" Gendry could no longer keep himself from asking.

"None of your business." the gray eyed woman snapped as she fell into the booth across from him.

"Arya play nice." the redhead reminded her. She turned to Gendry with an apologetic grin. "I'm Ygritte. That's Rickon. This is Arya, I promise her bite is worse than her bark."

The woman, Arya, merely rolled her eyes in response.

"Why'd you help us?" the boy asked curiously as he began to fidget nervously.

"Don't really know." Gendry admitted with a shrug. He didn't have the faintest idea what was going on but he didn't really want to tell them it was because he didn't have anything else to do today but wonder whether or not he still had a box of mac and cheese at home.

The others accepted that and turned back to whispering to each other. Gendry tried hard not to listen and was debating going to buy a beer since it seemed his time with their strange trio was growing to a close.

"Fine!" Arya finally cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

"It evens the playing field; it will give us a better chance." Rickon reminded her calmly.

"Playing field is plenty even already," Arya huffed as she glared at Gendry. Gendry stared back at her in wonder, why was she acting like he'd done something wrong?

"If we want to add him, we have to do it now." Ygritte nudged Arya lightly with her elbow causing Arya to let out a long-suffering sigh before she pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

"For the record I don't think we need another body. Especially not a newbie who is just going to slow us down." Arya said hotly glaring at her friends.

"Noted. Send the damn text." Ygritte sighed as Arya grumbled and began to type rapidly on her phone. As she put it down on the table after hitting send Gendry was able to read the message she had sent, although it did take him a moment to make it out since it was upside down.

_We're invoking our right to an addition._

Gendry's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the words. He had no idea what was going on with these three and he was just about to ask again when a message popped up on her phone.

_It's too late in the game for that._

"Jon's complaining." Arya said as if that ended whatever it was they were trying to do.

"Give me your phone." Rickon demanded even though he was already reaching for it. Gendry read over his shoulder curiously as he replied.

_No one is out yet. We are well within our rights to even our numbers._

Gendry shook his head in confusion as he watched three dots appear on the screen as someone typed out a response.

_Team One agrees._

Almost immediately another text came through _Team Two agrees._ Although this one was accompanied by several little red angry face emojis.

Gendry could feel his brow furrowed and he looked up as Arya snatched her phone from Rickon's hand and pointed it at him. He heard the click of a photo being taken and before he could protest her phone swooshed letting him know she had just sent his photo to who even knew at this point.

"What is going on?" Gendry finally asked, more confused then he'd felt in a long time. Maybe he should have just gone home after all.

"What's your name?" Arya asked, peering up at him curiously through the hair that had fallen out of her short ponytail.

"Gendry." he was so bewildered even his own name sounded unsure coming out of his mouth.

"Put your phone number in." Arya said, spinning her phone to face his direction, open to the group text where his photo and name were the last things sent.

Gendry did as he was told while he wondered just what in Seven Hells he had just signed himself up for.

XxX

To say that she was unhappy at having a fourth person in their group, especially a person who knew none of their rules, was more than an understatement. Arya was pissed.

This was an important year for her. She had to settle the score with Theon and prove to him (and everyone else) once and for all that last year had been luck on his part or simply a fluke. It was not going to happen again and he could stop lording it over her any time now.

Having some new kid to babysit was just going to hold them up.

They had less than ten minutes left on the timer so Arya let Rickon explain to their new team member just what the hell they were doing. He still looked confused after the explanation and Arya wasn't sure if it was because it was a lot to take in or if that was his permanent expression.

Once a year every summer all of the Stark siblings (and now their significant others) met up and for twenty-four hours they became mortal enemies. Well to anyone who wasn't on the same team as they were. It was a game of paintball that had been going back far into Arya's childhood. She could remember playing when they were only allowed to use Nerf guns, keeping score had been much harder back then as Jon was prone to pretending he didn't get hit.

They had played every year for as long as she could remember. Even when she was studying abroad in Braavos she always made sure to come home in time to play the game. The games contained some of her favorite memories of her siblings, like the time Sansa jumped in front of a paintball for her because she knew Arya was the better shot and even when Robb had picked her up to use as a human shield to defeat Bran. The bruises and welts she'd had from that were worth it when she thought back of Robb roaring in her ear like they were on a real battlefield.

Arya was not fond of the idea of having to share this game with a stranger, it was hard enough for her to accept that her siblings' partners were playing now too. She had been the one to come up with the rule that couples could not be on the same team. She claimed it was because she didn't want anyone to have an unfair advantage but really it was because she didn't like having to share the game with anyone that wasn't a Stark; Theon being the only expectation as he was practically a Stark anyway and he'd been playing with them since the game's creation.

Arya had never allowed anyone she was dating into the game. Truth be told she had never had a serious boyfriend before but still, no one was ever allowed into this part of her life. She had every intention of keeping it that way.

She had been so happy when the names were drawn that year, she had never been on the same team as Ygritte before and she'd seen how she'd played the last three years. She was as wild as she looked sometimes. Now that they had added a fourth person to their mix Arya was a little annoyed that they weren't already on a four-person team as then she wouldn't have to be sitting here listening to her little brother explain their family game to this stranger. She didn't care if he had helped them out earlier. As far as she was concerned his help had been a waste of his time, they would have gotten away just fine on their own.

They had been playing in teams for as long as they had been playing. The game had started when Arya was seven and Rickon had cried so hard at the thought of being excluded that their parents had demanded they find a way for their two-year-old brother to play with them or no one got to play at all. He was just as bad at realizing being hit with the Nerf bullet meant you were out as Jon was.

As there had been seven of them in the beginning the teams had never been even. It was decided early on that the team with the lesser amount of people would be allowed to invoke a new person into the game as long as they did so before anyone in the game 'died'. There had been several people included in the games over the years, none of whom Arya had been really happy about. She supposed Jon's friend Tormund hadn't been all that bad but the year Sansa had gotten Jenye Poole to play had made her want to tear her hair out. Jenye had been lucky they were only playing with Nerf guns at that point.

Just as the right to include an extra person, it was decided early on that the teams would be chosen at random. Everyone entered their names into a hat and the teams were pulled that way. This got a bit more complicated when Arya made the rule that couples couldn't play on the same team together but they made it work. The teams that had been drawn that year were some of Arya's favorites if only for the fact that her, Ygritte, and Rickon all being on the same team had made the others frightened. They were the most savage players after all.

Team One consisted of Theon, Robb, Bran's boyfriend Jojen and Rickon's girlfriend Shireen. It was Shireen's first year playing and Arya hoped that Rickon wasn't secretly planning on taking it easy on her. Team Two was Sansa, Jon, Bran and Robb's wife Jenye. Arya missed the days before Sansa and Theon were dating, back then if they were on the same team they spent the whole time arguing and flirting and were easy to pick off.

Arya tuned back in to listen to Ygirtte explain to their newest team member the tactical rules of the game.

"You get shot in a limb you cannot use that limb the rest of the game. You get hit in a leg be prepared to hop." Ygritte grinned, probably thinking like Arya was of last year when Ygritte hit Jon in the thigh in the first ten minutes of the game. He had to hop and use crutches for seventeen hours before the game ended.

"You get shot in the head, neck or torso you're dead. Fall where you are when you got shot and once the living players are no longer within twenty feet of you, you can get up again. Text a picture of your wound to the group chat and head to the safe zone." Ygritte continued.

"Safe zone?" Gendry asked wearily, clearly aware of how over his head he was.

"I'll text you the address." Arya sighed, they needed to be plotting not explaining rules the rest of them knew by heart.

"Oh, and if you get shot in a limb you have to text a picture of that to the group chat too. That way everyone knows if you try to cheat." Rickon added quickly. Jon was the reason they'd made that rule five games ago.

"No one is allowed to use cars or buses, anything like that. All travel has to be done on foot. We also can't stay in any building for longer than twenty minutes at a time." Ygritte finished before leaning back satisfied that they had covered all the bases.

Gendry nodded mutely, and Arya felt a brief pang of sympathy for him. She supposed it was a lot to take in. Her sympathy quickly faded to irritation though as she remembered that no one had made him follow after them in the first place. If Rickon wasn't so trigger happy he wouldn't even be with them.

"Our time here is almost up." Arya explained as she stood and began to pull items from her backpack. She placed a pair of clear glasses like the rest of them were wearing in front of Gendry. The last thing they needed was for someone to get shot in the eye. Bran was too fond of hitting people with head shots to risk anything.

She put a walkie in front of him and tapped it with one finger. "Channel three." they used their phones for the group message but Arya wanted to be able to get a hold of her team in tight situations without worrying that a stray ringtone would give them away.

Lastly, she pulled a smaller paintball gun than the ones the rest of them were armed with out and handed it to Gendry. One of the few perks of being on the lesser manned team was the extra gun and ammo. Everyone else had to work off one gun each and a limited supply of ammo. Although, Arya supposed now her team did too. Whatever, she always tried to take the paint from the deads' guns before she ran. "You know how to use it?" she asked, waiting for him to nod in confirmation before taking her hands off it.

Gendry looked at the gun in his hands and the supplies Arya had put in front of him. "Were you always planning on finding a fourth?" he asked curiously.

Arya shrugged as Ygritte stood and Rickon pushed Gendry until he got out of the booth as well. "We weren't but it never hurts to be prepared."

The timer on Rickon's phone went off and Gendry swallowed hard as he looked at Arya. He looked as nervous as if he was about to step out into a real battle. Arya was pleased to see that, maybe that meant he would play seriously. She didn't handle dead weight on her team and if she had to shoot Gendry in the back to get the rest of her team to victory, she would.


	2. Shot

When they stepped out of the bar Gendry couldn't help but feel nervous, his eyes darting from side to side down the narrow alley as if he expected the other players to be waiting for them. He wasn't sure why he was so on edge all of a sudden. He had been the one to lead the others here, he knew how off the beaten path it was. The bar was really only known by regulars and they preferred to keep it that way. Still, Gendry let out a small breath of relief to find the alley as deserted as it was when they had entered the bar.

He turned to face the others and shifted uncomfortably to find Arya staring at him with a narrowed gaze. He couldn't help but feel like he had made a mistake agreeing to join their game. The other two seemed excited to have evened out their numbers but Arya looked like she wanted nothing more than to shoot him in the face and yank the gun out of his hands.

"Where should we go now?" Rickon asked curiously as they huddled in the middle of the alley. No sense in going out to the road in plain sight when they didn't have a plan.

"We should try to set a trap." Arya said definitively. Judging by the look on her face Gendry was willing to bet she already had a trap in mind.

"That would work. We need to get everyone together. The game is taking much longer this year." Ygritte mused, tightening her ponytail as they talked.

"How long does the game usually last?" Gendry asked curiously. They had told him the game was blocked off for twenty-four hours and there were only nine hours left. Gendry didn't think that they would be playing for all of them. Although he supposed it didn't really matter if they did, he didn't have any other plans.

"Usually about twelve hours, less if we're in Winterfell." Rickon shrugged when he caught the look Gendry was giving him. "No one lets us in their stores anymore." he admitted sheepishly.

"Longest game is twenty-one hours." Arya added as she adjusted the strap holding her paintball gun to her torso. "This one is going to go longer if we don't come up with a strategy."

No sooner had the words left her mouth a symphony of chimes and beeps went off as someone sent a message to the group text.

Gendry didn't know the number but Ygritte muttered to him, "Robb.", as they all read the message.

_Jojen had an episode. We're taking him to the hospital near the bay. Meet us there. _

Gendry started in surprise, he didn't know who Jojen was or what kind of an episode he'd had but he felt a pang of worry for the boy anyway. He looked up and was startled to see everyone else was grinning.

"Am I missing something?" he asked cautiously, looking from one smiling face to the next.

"Someone set the trap for us." Arya said calmly as she pocketed her phone and everyone set off for the mouth of the alley. Gendry only hesitated for a moment before joining them.

"How can you be sure it's not real?" Gendry asked as he followed after them.

Arya snorted as Rickon looked over his shoulder at him. "Robb tried this same thing a few years ago with Jon's friend Sam."

"It was a trap then, it's a trap now." Arya assured him as she peeked around the walls of the alley before heading out into the street like she owned it.

"Why are we going there if you know it's a trap?" Gendry asked, there was so much he did not understand about this game. Or its players, it seemed.

"Because the others will go." Ygritte explained as she peeked around a street corner before waving the others after her. They got more than a few curious looks from onlookers as they walked.

"Bran's team will have to go." Rickon explained, clearly seeing how lost Gendry felt. "He won't risk Jojen on this not being a trap."

"This is low even for Robb." Ygritte observed causing Arya to tense. Gendry could see her back stiffen and he watched her curiously.

"Ten to one its Theon's idea." Arya bit out and Gendry couldn't help but wonder at the anger in her voice. He wondered what this Theon character had done to receive so much ire from the woman.

"Well, he is defending champion. He's going for a streak." Ygritte agreed with a nod.

Gendry glanced over at her in surprise. "You didn't win last year?" he asked Arya causing her to glare at him. He shifted under the weight of her gaze. How such a small woman could produce such a look was lost on him. "I just figured you would be hard to kill."

She only glared at him more, her fingers tightening on her gun and for a wild moment Gendry was certain she was going to shoot him. But she simply shook her head at him before walking to the front of the group.

"We don't talk about last year." Rickon whispered as she walked away.

Rickon's whisper left a lot to be desired as Arya easily overheard him and she snapped back over her shoulder, "Last year was a fluke!"

A hundred questions were burning in Gendry's mouth but one head shake from Rickon and Ygritte's wicked grin made him decide he better keep his mouth shut on this one. This was their game after all, he was just crashing it.

They walked on in silence until the hospital came into sight. They were across the street and huddled next to a building as they surveyed the area. Gendry didn't know who he was looking for but he didn't see anyone with paintball guns so he assumed they were in the clear.

"Robb didn't even bother to tell us what room to go to." Ygritte said with a shake of her head as she looked at her phone. "Amateurs."

"Robb wouldn't risk us going into the hospital. They're on the grounds." Arya explained patiently; her gray eyes bright behind her glasses as she surveyed the area. "Let's split up. You guys take the right and the newb and I will go left."

Everyone nodded in agreement and Gendry watched Ygritte and Rickon walk away with a sinking in his gut. He didn't think Arya wanted him with her because of his skills. He was going to have to make sure to walk behind her.

"You sure you're ready to shoot your girlfriend?" he heard Ygritte ask as they walked away.

"She knows what she signed up for." Rickon responded and Ygritte's laughter was still in his ears as Gendry followed after Arya in silence.

They had just reached the first line of cars when Arya pulled her walkie off her hip to turn the volume down low, she glared at Gendry until he did the same.

"I did not ask you to join. I will leave you if you fall behind." Arya told him tightly, her gaze like steel as she stared him down.

Gendry bristled at her tone and she had turned to walk away from him but he grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop, ignoring the never-ending eye daggers she was giving him. He was sick of the looks and he knew he couldn't handle another nine hours of it, or however long the game ended up taking. They needed to air this out now before it got in the way of her game.

"I get that you're pissed that I'm playing but I am. I'm on your team and I promise not to hold you back." Gendry looked down at her and shrugged helplessly. Why couldn't she just see him as an unexpected ally? "Besides I'm here now. Wouldn't it be easier to stop trying to fight me too?"

Arya yanked her arm away from him and rose an eyebrow at him coldly. "What makes you think anything about me is easy?"

She turned away from him to begin making her way through the cars, peering down each row cautiously like she expected to see someone crouched among the vehicles. Judging by the way they seemed to play the game Gendry decided that was probably exactly what she was expecting. Gendry watched her go with a sinking feeling in his gut. Maybe he should just shoot himself to drop out of the game, she would clearly be much happier that way.

"What can I do to make you stop hating me?" Gendry called after her. If she asked him to take himself out of the game, he would. He had crashed it after all, he had no place there.

Arya did not say what he had been expecting nor did she even spare him a glance as she returned, "Prove yourself."

Gendry didn't know how she expected him to do that but he hoped it could be as easy as taking out another player. Part of him wanted to remind Arya that he didn't know who any of the other players were but he could already see her eye roll and knew her response, "Anyone with a gun." He hadn't shot a paintball gun in years, he hoped he was a better shot than he remembered.

A sudden loud pop pulled him from his thoughts and he watched as Arya dove towards the ground. Gendry noticed a bright circle of paint on the car where her head had been moments before and understanding flashed in his mind as he hit the ground as well. He felt the skin of his arm tear on the gravel and he bit back a curse at the sting. Gendry had enough time for a quick thought that whoever owned that car was going to be pissed and hoped that hospital security didn't come after them. He noticed Arya crawling and he headed after her, army crawling down the aisle. He split off from her without her having to say anything and watched in surprise as she crawled underneath a car.

This had not been how he expected his day to go. Gendry crawled underneath a truck a row away from Arya and flinched as he heard people running in their direction. He watched as a pair of boots ran down their aisle. He turned to his side to see Arya shifting out from underneath the car and he was about to ask her what her plan was when he saw her raise to her knees and heard her gun go off. A thud to his left made Gendry turn in surprise and he flinched backwards as he saw a brunette woman lying on the ground a car over, her face turned towards him and a bright circle of orange paint in the center of her forehead.

She didn't move at first but when she caught sight of him under the car she winked. Gendry looked away from her with a shake of his head. He'd never had siblings until recently and they still weren't that close. He had no idea if this was normal family behavior or if he had unwittingly stumbled into the weirdest family in Westeros.

Arya was crawling on her stomach between the cars again so Gendry cast a quick glance up and down the aisle before slipping out from underneath the truck and following her, making sure to keep a row of cars between them. He already knew Arya would freak out on him if he tried to go down the same aisle as her. It would make them too easy of targets and put half her team in danger.

There was the sound of more running footsteps and without looking over Gendry knew Arya had gone under a car until she could locate the direction of the sound so Gendry slipped under the first car that was large enough to house him underneath it. It was a much tighter fit than before and Gendry found himself suddenly glad he wasn't claustrophobic.

He looked around to locate Arya and found her two cars in front of him and a row over. He could just make out the bottoms of her shoes.

"I know you're here somewhere Arya." a deep voice suddenly called in a sing-song tone.

Gendry looked around wildly and noticed a pair of black boots coming down the row in front of them. He saw Arya turn to face the aisle and he knew she had seen the boots too. He expected her to roll away out the other side of the car and found himself growing more and more anxious as she stayed where she was, her finger hovering on the trigger of her gun. He wondered if her plan was to shoot the person in the foot but that wouldn't count as a kill shot and it would give her position away. Gendry worried on his lower lip as a plan came to him.

It seemed he had found a chance to prove himself after all.

He hoped desperately that there weren't any innocent bystanders in the parking lot as he watched the boots come ever closer, still calling Arya's name. She looked ready to fire but Gendry took a deep breath and shimmed his torso out from underneath the car, his gun raising before he had even taken in who he was aiming at.

He caught sight of a paintball gun in a dark-haired man's hands and fired, crossing his fingers in his mind that his aim was good.

A bright green circle of paint appeared on the man's chest and he swore as he dropped to the pavement, glaring at Gendry in a look that made him certain more than the similarities of their features that this man was related to Arya.

A distant scream of anguish suddenly filled Gendry's ears and he pulled himself out from underneath the car as Arya did the same, reaching over to steal a handful of paintballs from the man's gun. He rolled his eyes at her as she did so.

"That's Sansa." Arya whispered as she shoved the ammo into her gun. "We should go."

Gendry nodded and followed after her, running at a half crouch as they made their way through the cars. "Don't we want to go after her too?" he asked quietly as they stopped beside the last of the cars.

Arya shook her head as she peered carefully at the stretch of grass, they would have to cross to get away from the parking lot.

"We just took out half her team. Bran's with her too." Arya looked behind him at the parking lot like she expected the others to pop out at her from behind Gendry. "I'm not facing him without the others."

"I didn't think you'd be scared of anything." Gendry admitted before he realized what he had just said.

"I'm not scared of him." Arya snapped. She had a spot of oil on her forehead and it made it a little harder for Gendry to take her glares as seriously. "I have to survive long enough to get my revenge."

Gendry was just about to ask her who she needed to get revenge on when Arya cast one last look at the grass field and rose to her haunches.

"We're going to have to make a break for it. Let's move."

Gendry felt like that was the closest he was going to get to acceptance of being on her team.

He supposed he could live with that.

XxX

Arya had been perfectly prepared to take Jon out herself, she was going to shoot him in the foot and then while he was hopping around, she'd roll out on the other side of the car and shoot him in the head. It had worked for her before and she was slightly annoyed that Gendry didn't think she could take care of herself. She tried to shake the thought from her head as they sprinted past the hospital, Arya leading the way to a small coffeeshop across the street. She had told Gendry to prove himself and she supposed he just had.

She was just happy not to be caring around any dead weight. Usually the people that only played once were awful allies because they weren't emotionally invested in the game.

Arya was more invested than she usually was this year. She always got pretty intense when it came to the game but this year, she had a wrong to right. It was why she hadn't let them stay in the parking lot to finish picking of Sansa's team. Arya wanted to win but more than that she wanted to make sure she was the one who took out Theon that year.

The customers in the café looked up in concern at the sight of their paintball guns but Arya ignored them as she settled into a booth by the window. This way they could see when any of the others were approaching.

She took the walkie off her hip and spoke into it as Gendry started a timer on his phone. She was pleasantly surprised he'd remembered the rule.

"We left the hospital. Jon and Jeyne are dead. Are you in a safe location?" Arya ignored the looks people were giving her and she kept her gaze on the street. Gendry fidgeted beside her clearly affected by the weird looks they were getting.

Their phones both went off at the same time and Arya didn't bother to check hers as Gendry told her what the message was. "It's the two people who just got out. Oh, weird."

The surprise in Gendry's tone was strong enough to make her tear her gaze away from the street to look at him. His brow was wrinkled in confusion and he looked up in time to see her curious glance.

"My cousin Shireen is in the group text." Gendry admitted with a shrug. "I heard you guys talking about a Shireen but I didn't think it was her."

"That's Rickon's girlfriend." Arya explained as she surveyed Gendry. She supposed they did have similar coloring. Still, she hadn't heard Shireen mention him before although she hadn't spent much time with the girl.

"We just met a few years ago." Gendry admitted uncomfortably even though Arya wasn't pressing him to talk about it. She turned back to look at the street, relieved to see it still devoid of players. Although she was a bit nervous since her team wasn't getting back to her yet.

Arya put two and two together and realized that Gendry must be one of Robert Baratheon's bastard children. There had been quite the media coverage a few years back when the politician had done one of those DNA family tree tests and found he was the father not to three children like previously thought, but eleven. And those were just the children who had also taken the DNA test on that website and registered. Judging from his promiscuous past he probably had more children out there that he didn't know about.

Gendry seemed pretty uncomfortable which was making Arya feel the same way. All she wanted to do was play the game and get her revenge, she really didn't want to have heart to hearts with strangers.

Thankfully, their phones went off again breaking the stiff silence they had fallen into.

Arya tore her eyes off the window to look at her phone, surprised to see another death count message.

"Robb's out too. Serves him right for using Jojen as bait." Arya said as she pocketed her phone. "We're the only whole team left."

"I still don't get how we win." Gendry admitted nervously. Arya supposed his nerves were fair, she had been snapping at him for over an hour now. "Is it the last person or last team?"

"Last team standing wins." Arya explained, tapping her fingers against her walkie nervously. What was taking the others so long?

"What if there's more than one person left on the team? Do they have to turn on each other?" Gendry asked curiously.

"Of course not. We're not animals." Arya was offended he had even thought such a thing. She didn't bother telling him the last time there was more than one surviving member on a team had been five years ago, the last time her and Bran had been on the same team. With the two of them together, no one else had stood a chance. They were the two best shots in the game.

Arya spared Gendry another glance to see him nodding in relief. She was surprised to note that his eyes were a striking but pretty blue. Quickly she shook the thought from her mind, focusing instead on her annoyance that he had interrupted their game for no reason and shot Jon when she could have easily taken him out by herself. She was not a damsel in distress, she did not need to be rescued.

A sudden flash of red caught her eye and Arya let out a breath of relief as she noticed Ygritte and Rickon running in their direction. That relief faded when she saw the three people chasing after them.

"We have to go." Arya said as she slipped out of the booth. Gendry was already raising as he had noticed the others as well.

Arya waited to start running until she was out of the café. She could tell Ygritte and Rickon caught sight of her because they changed direction slightly to head their way. Arya led the pack around the edge of the café, her eyes darting around wildly for a place to hide. The only place she could see that was big enough was a dumpster. She pushed open the lid as Ygritte and Rickon turned the corner of the building.

Thankfully the dumpster had been emptied that morning and there was only one bag of trash at the bottom. Arya was just trying to figure out how to hold the lid and climb inside when the lid lifted out of her hands. She looked over her shoulder to see Gendry holding it up and waiting for them to climb inside. She did so quickly, holding her breath as she jumped inside. Rickon landed in a graceless heap on top of her and Ygritte sat on the edge of the dumpster to hold the lid so Gendry could climb in with them. He settled next to Arya as Ygritte hoped inside and shut the lid quietly after her.

Arya tried to fight back a gag at the smell. It wasn't as bad as it could have been had the dumpster been full but years of trash baking in the hot sun had baked the smell into the metal.

"Does this count as a room?" Rickon whispered into the dark causing Arya to elbow him in the ribs. They didn't need to talk and draw attention to themselves.

"I am not staying in here for twenty minutes." Ygritte whispered back.

"We're screwed if anyone looks in here." Gendry muttered making Arya sigh.

"No one will look. Everyone shut up." she snapped as softly as she could.

Over the sound of their breathing Arya heard shouting and running footsteps and she knew the other team was out there looking for them. She counted to a hundred and then back down to zero and listened to the silence outside. Slowly she pushed Rickon's legs off hers and rose to her feet, propping the dumpster lid up slowly, her gun resting on the lip in case she needed to fire.

No one was out there but Arya counted to fifty again just to be sure. Satisfied she rose the lid above her head, Gendry once again taking it off her hands so that she could climb out. Everyone gulped in breaths of fresh air gratefully as they clambered out of the dumpster.

"How'd you know no one would look?" Gendry asked Arya with interest as she held the lid open for him to get out.

Arya grinned at him as she let the lid fall shut after him. "Theon's team are basically both newbies. Jojen's only played two years and last year he got out in the first three hours. Shireen has never played before. They don't realize how serious we play yet."

"And Theon?" Gendry asked as he brushed coffee grounds off his bag.

"He's too busy trying to catch Sansa." Rickon said with an eye roll.

"Never mind all that. Which of you two shot Jon?" Ygritte asked curiously as she looked between him and Arya.

Gendry shifted sheepishly and ran a hand over the back of his neck, a move that made Arya's stomach flip. She told herself it was just the lingering scent from the dumpster. "I did."

Ygritte reached out and punched him lightly on the arm. "That's for not letting me do it!"

Arya rolled her eyes at the woman before surveying the area around them. "The others can't have gone far. We can still catch up."

"Um first we should run." Rickon said, his voice suddenly catching.

Everyone turned to face him nervously and Arya cursed when she noticed Sansa running in their direction and Bran rolling his wheelchair just as quickly beside her. Arya felt her stomach drop at the sight. She knew she needed to avoid Bran for the rest of the game if she wanted a chance of taking out Theon. The only way people avoided getting shot by Bran was avoiding Bran himself. Once he had you in his crosshairs you were already dead.

"Seven hells." Arya whispered before turning on her heels and bolting, the others quickly following after her.


	3. Aim

**Note**: This is just a short little fic so this is the second to last chapter! Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews! My cat sat on my laptop and it jammed a couple keys so they are typing more than one character at a time. So, shout to out to Socks for making editing twice as time consuming.

XxX

His heart was hammering like a war drum in his chest, or at least what he assumed war drums sounded like based off of what he had heard in the movies. There was a large park behind the café they had been holed up in and they sprinted across the grass, the shouts of the pair chasing after them edging them forward, faster than Gendry thought his legs could go. His gym bag thumped painfully against his back with every step and his palms had grown sweaty against the plastic and metal gun in his hands. Gendry found himself suddenly grateful he would never have to be in a real battle because he wasn't sure his body could handle the stress.

The ground had a slight slope to it and Gendry let the incline propel him forward even faster, grateful that it had not been leg day at the gym or he probably would have fallen behind by now. A sudden commotion to their left caught Gendry's attention and he turned his head slightly to see another group of people with paintball guns running at them. If he had had enough breath left to curse, he would have.

"Shit shit shit." Rickon muttered under his breath and Gendry was impressed he had enough air left that he was able to talk at all.

"Split up." Arya hissed veering off to the right towards a large clump of trees. Rickon headed to the left and Ygritte kept sprinting dead ahead. Gendry wondered which direction that left him to go in and with a groan he realized was either going to have to stand his ground or follow after one of the others.

It seemed he did have enough breath left to curse after all as he headed after Arya. From what he had seen she was the best fighter on their team so he figured he had the best chance of survival if he went with her.

The groups that were chasing after them divided up as well and a boy probably a few years older than Rickon chased after Gendry as he sprinted towards the tree line where Arya had disappeared into. He hadn't even reached the trees when several guns went off and he hit the ground faster than Arya had in the parking lot. He flipped over onto his back and aimed him gun at the boy who was following him but he was already laying on the ground, staring up at the sky forlornly.

Gendry took a deep breath as he surveyed himself for paint, peeking at his back the best he could.

"You're fine. Looks like that bag of yours was good for something." Arya said as she came out of the trees behind him like a ghost and approached the boy and pulled his gun from his hands.

Gendry looked down and sure enough there was a bright blue circle of paint on his bag. Suddenly Gendry didn't mind so much the bruise it had been beating against his spine.

Arya pulled a handful of paintballs from the boy's catcher and put them in her own before holding out a handful to Gendry. He took them even though he had only fired one shot so far and had plenty of ammo. He wasn't about to turn down a nice gesture from her.

"Thanks." he whispered to Arya as they both shut the cannisters on their guns. She merely rolled her eyes at him as she scanned the area.

Down the park about fifty yards away two players were shooting at each other from behind a couple of trees. One was the boy in the wheelchair who Gendry assumed was Bran and the other was Rickon who was huddled behind a large tree and clearly trapped.

"We have to sneak up behind Bran." Arya said to Gendry, her gray eyes bright behind her glasses. "Quiet as a shadow."

Gendry nodded at her and let her lead the way up the grass field, keeping his eyes out for any of the other players. He didn't see any and he wasn't sure if it was because they were setting a trap or trying to avoid Bran. He was as good of a shot as everyone had said and if it wasn't for the tree protecting Rickon he would be dead by now. As it was, the shots Bran was sending at him were coming dangerously close.

There wasn't really a way to sneak up on someone when approaching them from an empty feild but Gendry did his best to make his footsteps lighter. He felt like a clambering bull next to Arya who seemed to make no noise as she crept forward, keeping Bran in her sights and clearly just waiting until he was in close enough range to shoot.

It seemed like a good enough plan but just as Arya was moving her finger to squeeze the trigger Bran suddenly stopped firing at Rickon and pointed his gun in their direction. Even from the distance Gendry could see his smirk. He didn't even have enough time to feel fear as Bran gave them a cheeky wave and fired.

Right before his gun went off Bran was suddenly tackled from the side as Rickon darted out from behind the tree and hit him in a bear hug that knocked his gun a hair off course.

Gendry looked down at himself expecting to see paint but he was clear. He turned to Arya with his heart in his throat and saw her readjusting her gun so that she would be able to shoot with her right hand. Orange paint dripped down the sleeve of her left arm.

He swallowed hard at the sight before shaking his head at himself. He seemed to keep forgetting this was just a game. Realizing they were still sitting targets for Bran he turned back to face him only to realize that in the moment he was worrying about Arya, Bran and Rickon had managed to take each other out. Gendry winced in pain looking at how closely they were slumped together. Getting shot from that close was never pleasant.

Arya snapped a picture of her arm and Gendry felt his phone vibrate as she sent the message to the group chat. She nodded him forward, not sparing a look back at her fallen brothers and teammate.

Gendry followed after her in surprise.

"We're just going to leave him there?" he didn't really know what else they could do for Rickon in the context of their strange rules but still it didn't sit well with Gendry that they were just abandoning a team member like this.

Arya didn't even look back at him as she shrugged, "Dead is dead."

Gendry nodded at that even though she wasn't looking at him and ran after her down the sloping lawn. They still didn't know where the other players were but it was likely they were still inside the park. Gendry followed after Arya to a set of playground equipment that was still under construction, ducking beneath the 'under construction' tape with her. Gendry really hoped he didn't get arrested because of this game.

Arya led him over to a large tunnel slide that was laying on its side beside a section of poles waiting to be put up. She beckoned him to go around to the other opening as she lay down and wiggled her way backwards inside of it. Gendry had to admit he was impressed she wasn't using her left arm even when it was just the two of them. That was dedication.

Gendry ran to the other side of the slide casting one last look around the park before he too crawled in backwards. He didn't see anyone else around but he figured that didn't mean that they weren't there. He had seen firsthand how intently people took this game.

The slide wasn't quite long enough for both of them to lay in it end to end, despite Arya's shorter stature. Gendry's legs got tangled up with hers as he settled in, his gun aimed and pointed out the mouth of the slide as he waited with bated breath for someone to approach them.

He hoped that they didn't have to make a sudden run for it because there was no way that they would be able to get their legs untangled in time. He kept expecting for Arya to kick him away but she didn't and Gendry tried very hard to ignore the way her legs felt resting against his. This was not the time or place for such thoughts.

He wasn't sure how long they were laying there before the sound of running footsteps reached them. Gendry held his breath and placed his finger on the trigger as he waited for someone to come into his line of sight. He was so wound up and ready to take someone else out of the game that when a sudden flaming head of hair popped up in the mouth of the slide, he damn near fired.

He only just managed to keep from squeezing the trigger and he glared at Ygritte with a sigh of relief as she grinned down at him, oblivious or not caring about how close he had just come to shooting her in the face.

"Don't you two look cozy in here." she drawled, her eyes glinting wickedly as she peered down the slide at them.

Gendry didn't respond as Arya kicked off his legs and propelled herself forward out of the slide. Even with the use of only one arm she got out faster than he did.

"Saw Rickon is out." Ygritte said waving her phone at them. "I took out Shireen for him. Spared him that pain."

Arya rolled her eyes at her and Gendry could see she was doing the mental math of the remaining players. "Just Theon and Sansa left."

"And all of us." Gendry reminded her unnecessarily.

"They are so outnumbered. We should let them destroy each other." Ygritte mused thoughtfully.

"They won't. That'd be too helpful for us." Arya said as she turned in a slow circle to survey the park around them. Gendry glanced around as well but the only thing he saw was children playing and parents watching after them. In the distance there was a small group of people playing frisbee. Part of Gendry longed to be playing a game as carefree as that but when Arya turned to him and Ygritte he still felt his heart skip a beat in anticipation.

"We should go back to the hospital parking lot. They won't think to look for us there." Arya mused, tapping her fingers on her gun thoughtfully. "We need to figure out where they would have gone to."

"I'd bet money they went back to the house." Ygritte said as she shouldered her paintball gun and followed after Arya back up the grassy incline they had just sprinted down like they were running for their lives. When they passed the tree where Bran and Rickon had 'died' Gendry felt a tinge of grief pull at his chest for his fallen comrade and he shook his head at himself before hurrying to catch up with the girls.

"No, they wouldn't risk someone giving their location away." Arya shook her head, and even though Gendry was behind her he knew that she was still surveying the area to make sure they were clear. He caught her looking over her shoulder to check behind them more than once.

"Damn." Ygritte swore and she opened her mouth to say something else when Arya suddenly cut her off with a curse.

She was staring over Gendry's shoulder and her gun was raised to fire so Gendry stepped out of the line of her shot, raising his own gun as he turned.

To his surprise it was not one person running at them but two. Gendry's eyebrows rose as the man and woman running at them slowed down to a walk when they realized they had been caught. They crept forward slowly, taking each step carefully like they were waiting for the step that would be close enough for someone to shoot. Gendry knew that they outnumbered the duo but his heart still was beating wildly like he was facing down an entire army.

"What are you two doing together?" Ygritte asked suspiciously causing Gendry to remember that these two players were not on the same team.

"What does it look like?" the girl who Gendry realized had to be Sansa asked calmly.

"Cheating." Arya scoffed and Gendry resisted the urge to look over at her. Even with only one arm she was still a much better player than him so he didn't understand why he suddenly felt so protective when people were pointing guns at her.

"No, we're allies. Nothing in the rules about being allies." The man who could only be the infamous Theon said with a cheeky grin that made Gendry want to shoot if off him.

"There's a difference." Sansa agreed with an empathic nod of her head as Arya scoffed at them.

"Spoken like true cheaters." she spat and Gendry nodded along in agreement. He felt like he didn't even understand half the rules and he was still offended by their not following them.

Sansa rolled her eyes as Theon stared at the orange paint on Arya's useless left arm. "Who got you? I was hoping to be able to kill you again this year. It's not as much fun if you're wounded."

Arya was standing close enough to him that Gendry could hear her teeth grinding together and he knew she wanted to shout that last year was a fluke like she had earlier but she kept it together. It was going to be their last stand, one way or the other. There was no point wasting breath on petty squabbles when the end was near.

He made a mental note to not shoot Theon because he suddenly knew if he took that shot away from Arya, she would shoot him too.

"Bran got her." Sansa announced proudly as she moved her gun between Ygritte and Gendry, never taking her eyes off of them. Theon kept his gun aimed at Arya.

"And we got the rest of your team." Ygritte goaded loftily.

Gendry felt like he was about to burst out of his skin. He didn't understand why they were toying with each other but he figured it was just another part of the game he didn't understand. With the exception of Sansa occasionally pointing her gun at him he felt like no one even realized he was there which he supposed in a battle might not be the worst thing in the world.

It seemed Arya was growing antsy as well because from the corner of his eye he saw her hand twitch as she pulled the trigger.

Several things happened at once after that.

It appeared that Gendry was the only one who didn't get the memo that Ygritte's statement was fighting words and everyone fired their guns but him.

Arya threw herself backwards onto the ground as she fired so the headshot Theon's had fired went sailing over her to hit a tree. Arya's bullet landed on his right bicep as he had thrown himself sideways at the shot and her would be chest wound went off course.

Sansa's gun had been pointing at Ygritte for which Gendry felt guilty but thankful about as he hadn't been paying enough attention and would have felt incredibly stupid if he had gotten shot without at least firing at his shooter in a standoff. The paintball hit Ygritte square in the stomach and she doubled over with a dramatic wheeze as she fell to the ground. Her shot hit Sansa on the cheek and she swore loudly as she rose her hand to cup her face as she hit the grass and glared at Ygritte.

"That's for cheating. Allies my ass." Ygritte coughed before falling silent and staring up at the sky with her eyes glassed over.

Gendry looked around him with his mouth open slightly in shock as Theon took off at a sprint across the park.

"I will avenge you my sweet!" he cried over his shoulder, never slowing down even as he jumped over a park bench and kept running.

Gendry didn't look to see if Arya was getting up before he started running after Theon. It was two against one now and Gendry had never felt such high stakes in a game before in his life.

XxX

By the time they lost sight of Theon her lungs were burning and a stitch had formed in her side.

They had chased after him for several blocks and would have caught him if he hadn't managed to lose them at the last second at a busy street light. He had managed to dash across it before the light changed. Arya was all set to go after him, despite the cars speeding along the road. Gendry had caught her around the waist as she stepped off the pavement and pulled her back onto the sidewalk.

She fell back against his chest with an annoyed, "Oof." She had lost her footing as she fell and for a moment Gendry's weight behind her was the only thing holding her up.

Realizing that she had lost sight of Theon Arya got her feet underneath her and shoved Gendry's arms off of her. She spun around to stare at him with eyes as cold as ice. They had only known each other for a few hours and Arya had to admit she was impressed that he no longer wilted under the weight of her glare.

"You can't kill him if you get hit by a car first." Gendry sighed as he watched the lights over her shoulder. Arya kept glaring at him even as she silently agreed he had a point. She still thought she could have made it around the cars though.

She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the light to change and when it turned green, she sprinted across the street, barely dodging a mom with a stroller. Gendry called an apology out over his shoulder as they came to an abrupt stop at the corner.

"He went this way." Gendry said gesturing to the street straight ahead of them.

"I know." Arya snapped, she'd watched Theon run away too after all. She silently fumed that he wouldn't have gotten away at all if Gendry hadn't stopped her, good intentions be damned. "What I don't know is what his plan is now."

She tried to think like Theon would but it was so hard to follow his train of thought most of the time that she truly had no idea what he would have done next. Was he going to be hiding in a store waiting for them to pass before going back where they had just been? Was he waiting behind a corner to ambush them? Had he simply kept running? With Theon one never knew what they were going to get. While usually Arya enjoyed this part of him during the game it always set her hair on edge.

Knowing that they couldn't just stand on the corner and let the clock drain down Arya gestured Gendry forward. Theon liked to do what no one expected sometimes so she figured that was a good a place to start as any.

"We'll try the safe zone. He might try to head to the rental house." Arya mused, scanning the crowded street around them on the off chance he was still lurking nearby. She had been scanning the shop window behind Gendry so she saw the way his features fell at her words. His expression confused her at first until he spoke.

"I didn't realize you guys didn't live here." Gendry toyed with the gun in his hands that was getting him a lot of weird looks and people stepped out of his path in a way they never did for Arya. She would never understand why people thought that size was a measure of how intimidating someone was. From what she had seen Gendry was a marshmallow compared to her. "Makes sense. I probably would have heard about your yearly city-wide paintball game by now if you did."

Arya wondered if she was imagining the disappointment in his voice as they crossed the next block. She kept them going in the direction to the house but she searched the side streets for any sign of Theon. She wished Sansa hadn't told him that they used to track his phone during the games or he wouldn't have turned his location off and he would be so much easier to find now.

"My family has a rental because they wouldn't all fit into my apartment." Arya wasn't sure why they were even talking about this right now but she found that she couldn't stand the look of disappointment on Gendry's face, even if talk like this was distracting them from the important matter at hand. "I live here. My family is just visiting for a week." As they walked dusk was beginning to fall and the crowd began to slowly lessen. The looks their paintball guns got in the darkening light were even more startled. "We've never played in King's Landing before."

"Oh." Gendry sighed and Arya knew without a doubt that the look on his face now was relief. The sight of it made a warm feeling course through her stomach. Now was not the time for such things and she tried to shake the feeling away. She needed to focus if they were going to win and this year losing was simply not an option for her.

Gendry ran his hand over the back of his neck as he looked down at her and Arya was so distracted by the sight that she almost didn't see the reflection in the glass window behind him.

Her eyes widened and she grabbed Gendry around the waist and threw them both to the ground as the sharp pops of the paintball gun being fired at them from across the street went off. The glass window behind them took the bullets and a sea of pink paint smeared it. Arya felt a brief flash of pain for the shop keeper and tried to remember the name so that she could come by and clean it off tomorrow.

She had landed on top of Gendry, her legs falling to either side of his body as Theon peppered the building with bullets. Their eyes met for a moment and Arya tried very hard to ignore the suggestive position they just found themselves in.

Thankfully there was a bus station bench beside them blocking most of Theon's shot of them. Arya rolled off of Gendry to the pavement to use his body as a shield for her to scan the street to take aim at their attacker. She expected Gendry to move away from her and was surprised when instead he rolled onto his side to give her even more coverage.

Without the use of her left arm her shots weren't up to their usual caliber but Arya had been practicing shooting with her right hand since she was thirteen. She wasn't a bad shot even when right-handed. She rested her gun on Gendry's side to steady her aim and tried desperately to ignore the heat of his body underneath her hand.

The bench that was providing them with coverage was also blocking her aim of Theon.

"I can't get a clear shot." Arya admitted in an annoyed whisper.

"We should make a run at him." Gendry whispered back. She could feel his heart hammering underneath her arm and it was pounding nearly as hard as hers was. She told herself it was because of the anticipation of getting her revenge and nothing to do with his closeness.

"Are you hit?" Arya whispered, firing a shot at Theon even though she knew it would miss. She didn't want him to think that they were plotting.

"I don't think so." Gendry admitted and Arya spared one second to look down at his back. She felt her stomach plummet at the sight of pink paint before she realized that it was on his bag and that it was merely splatter from a shot that had burst on the pavement a bit too close for comfort.

"You're clear." Arya whispered; her voice breathless as she kept Theon in her sights. He had started to cross the street towards them, still firing and grinning like a mad man. With all the wild shots he was taking Arya was surprised he hadn't run out of bullets yet. At this rate they could just wait for him to run out of ammo. But Arya had found that there was no satisfaction in taking out the unarmed.

"Let's kill this bastard." Arya whispered as she moved her gun off Gendry's side. They both popped up to their feet at the same time and trained their guns on Theon who stopped in the middle of the street and looked between them with a look of surprise. Arya had a feeling he thought he had taken Gendry out. Pity he hadn't realized that the man was harder to kill than that.

A flash of fear crossed Theon's face before he turned and sprinted down the street.

"Coward!" Arya cried as she and Gendry took off after him. This time they were going to catch him, even if she had to sprint across traffic to do it.


	4. Revenge

He couldn't remember the last time a woman had left him this breathless; because Gendry was absolutely certain that the lack of air in his lungs was not from their frantic dash down the street but from the woman running beside him.

Even though he was quite a bit taller than her Arya's fast pace was able to keep up with his much longer strides with ease and they were only half a block away from Theon when he darted down an alley. They followed after him and Gendry could feel his heart pounding, out of anticipation rather than exertion. He had only been waiting for this moment for a few hours, Arya had been waiting a whole year. He couldn't even imagine how fast her heart had to be beating right now.

There was a chain link fence at the end of the dark alleyway and Theon bounded up to the top of it easily. He was just straddling the top when a gun went off in Gendry's ear and orange paint appeared on the leg of Theon's dark jeans. He swore loudly as Gendry blinked in surprise. He'd seen Arya take much harder shots than that so he didn't understand how she could have missed.

He dared to sneak a glance at her from the corner of his eye and at the sight of her smirking at Theon he realized that she had shot Theon in the leg on purpose. She was playing with him like a cat with a mouse. Now, even if he got off the fence, he wouldn't be able to run away.

"It's over." Arya said calmly as she took slow deliberate steps forward. She didn't look very concerned about the fact that Theon still had his own gun pointed at her. Gendry kept pace with Arya carefully, he didn't trust the bitter look on Theon's face and he knew he would fire his gun at any moment. Arya had played intently all game; he didn't understand why she was doing differently now.

"Admit that you got lucky last year." Arya demanded when she was mere feet away from Theon, glaring up at where he perched precariously above them.

Theon let out a harsh bark of laughter. "You're never going to let that go are you?"

Arya didn't answer and even though Gendry had only known her for a matter of hours even he knew the answer to that question was no.

Theon rolled his eyes as Gendry waited with bated breath for whatever was going to happen next. He kept Theon in his crosshairs even though he knew that there was only one way in seven hells he was going to be taking that shot. He spared another glance at Arya, silently pleading with her to shoot Theon so that she could get her revenge and this all could be over. He didn't think that his heart could handle much more stress.

Gendry had no idea how they managed to do this every year.

"Admit it." Arya repeated; her voice low like a growl.

Theon simply laughed once again as he gave her a careless shrug. "Never." He grinned at them manically as he gestured at both of them with his gun. "Let's get this over with. You know I'll take one of you with me."

"You can't take us both." Arya agreed, her gun never wavering even as Theon teetered on the fence, all of his weight being supported on one leg that was now getting shaky. Gendry wondered if it would be considered a dick move to shoot him in that leg just to wipe the smug grin off his face.

Hysterical laughter peeled from Theon's lips and Gendry's mouth suddenly felt like it was filled with sawdust. He knew that it was just a game, just a silly game that the players took far too seriously, but a game nonetheless. But when he watched Theon aim his gun at Arya his blood felt like it had turned to led and he knew that he could not stand to watch her get shot, game or no game.

Gendry watched with a sickening feeling in his gut as Theon's finger squeezed the trigger. Before he even realized what he was doing Gendry leaped, throwing his body in front of Arya. The paintball hit him square in the stomach and Gendry landed on the pavement in a heap with a groan. That was going to leave a mark.

The sound of his groan was lost in a loud crash and even though Gendry knew it was likely against the rules he turned his head to investigate the sound. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw Theon laying on the ground, his fingers covered in the orange paint now dripping off his chest as he let out dramatic gaps like he'd been shot with a real bullet.

Gendry looked at Arya in surprise as he realized that him jumping in front of her should have blocked her shot of Theon. He should have been hit in the back by her bullet unless...Gendry smiled to himself as he realized that Arya must have seen him move from the corner of her eye and known that he was going to jump in front of her. She'd had a fraction of a second to decide to change her gun's aim on a guess, thankfully it had worked.

Arya looked down at him then with a smug smirk as she rolled her eyes at Theon's watery gasps. "He's always been the most dramatic."

Theon ignored her callous remark, reaching his hand out in her direction, his fingers shaking like leaves in the wind. Gendry had to admit he was a bit impressed by his performance. "Tell my family I love them." he gasped before letting his hand drop to the pavement and falling still. He stared at Gendry unblinkingly for an unnervingly long time as Arya rolled her eyes again and kicked his foot lightly with her own.

"Tell them yourself." she said as she pulled her phone out of her pocket to take pictures of both men on the ground at her feet.

All three of their phones went off as she sent the pictures to the group chain.

Arya looked down at Theon and even from his angle on the pavement Gendry could see the smug grin on her lips. "Game over."

XxX

By the time the three of them made it the last eight blocks to the rental house Theon had his arms around both her and Gendry's shoulders and was regaling them all with the tale of how his team had managed to shake off Bran earlier that morning with no casualties.

Arya rolled her eyes at his antics and his exaggerated storytelling, catching Gendry's eye over Theon's shoulder. She couldn't help but smile as he rolled his eyes back at her in response.

At least his stories helped pass the time and before she knew it Theon was swinging the door to the rental house open, loudly proclaiming, "Make way for Arya Stark! Slayer of the greatest player to ever live and this year's champion!"

Arya rolled her eyes again so hard that it felt like they might fall out of their sockets and she stepped into the crowded house to frenzied cheers. She beckoned Gendry after her when she realized that he was still standing unsurely in the doorway.

"How exactly are you the greatest player to ever live if she killed you Greyjoy?" Ygritte asked curiously as she came and slapped Arya heartily on the back. Rickon jumped up from the couch he was sitting on with Shireen to wrap her in a big hug that Arya happily returned.

"I killed her last year!" Theon cried, taking the drink out of Robb's hand, ignoring his protests and downing it in a gulp.

"It was a fluke!" Arya cried and much to her chagrin several other voices joined hers on the statement. She tried to fight back a blush but judging from the look her father was giving her she didn't think it worked very well.

"Who is your addition?" Ned Stark asked, surveying Gendry up and down. Arya suddenly felt like the room was much too crowded and she ducked out from the arm Ygritte still had around her shoulders to grab the soda out of Bran's hands just to give her own hands something to do. When he started to protest Arya held up her arm so he could see the paint he'd left on her sleeve. She knew it was a cheap move but he let her have the soda so she was okay with it.

"This is Gendry." Rickon said warmly, slapping him on the back as he and Shireen exchanged awkward waves.

"He's the one who shot me!" Jon cried happily as he wrapped his arms around Ygritte's waist and pulled her to him. Judging from the way he swayed Arya would wager he had been drinking since then. "Where'd you find him?"

"He found us." Arya admitted; her eyes locked on Gendry's from across the room. He gave her a small smile at the words and she felt her stomach swoop at the sight. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant sensation.

After several different recounts of their standoff in the alley, all three of them being forced to tell their own version to the room more than once, and after everyone had slowly began to drift off into separate groups of twos and threes to recount their own favorite parts of the game Arya snuck out on to the back porch. She walked to the edge and placed her hands on the worn wooden railing as she took in a grateful breath of fresh air.

She hated calling the smog filled air of King's Landing 'fresh' when she thought of the air back home in Winterfell that somehow always tasted like snow and pine trees but it was a bit better than the stuffy air inside the house. She adored her family and she was already dreading when they would leave in three days. She knew they would all be together again next summer but she had no idea if she would get to see any of them until then. She hated that she always spent the back half of their visits already missing them.

The sound of the door opening behind her drew her from her melancholy thoughts and she cast a look over her shoulder, not all that surprised to find Gendry stepping nervously out onto the porch behind her. He let the door fall shut and they surveyed each other in silence for a moment, unsure of how to act with each other now that the circumstances that they had met under were over.

"Figured you'd be inside basking in your victory." Gendry finally said as he moved to stand beside her against the railing.

"I can bask just fine out here thanks." Arya quipped before silently cursing to herself. The game was over now and he hadn't stood in her way, in fact Gendry had even taken a bullet for her. There was no need to be snippy with him now. "It's your victory too you know. We're on the same team."

Gendry gave a small nod as he smiled down at her. "That has to be the nicest thing I've heard you say all day."

Arya narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that your polite way of saying that's the nicest thing you've heard me say ever?" She was trying to thank him for playing and he was teasing her? Who exactly did this paintball game crashing gym goer think he was?

In truth, Arya had to admit it was nice to be teased. She couldn't remember the last time someone who wasn't family had done so in a way that didn't make her want to put her fist into their throat.

"Can I ask you something?" Gendry suddenly asked, it didn't escape Arya's notice that he was avoiding her question. She nodded warily, not entirely sure what to expect to come out of his mouth. "What happened last year?"

Arya started in surprise. Even with all the times last year's game had been mentioned today for some reason that was not the question she was expecting. Maybe it was because she was so used to everyone else in her life already knowing about it. She hated talking about it but Gendry did take a bullet for her after all, she supposed she owed him this much.

"Theon shot me." Arya admitted with a sigh.

Gendry rolled his bright blue eyes (seriously how were they _that_ blue? Was he wearing contacts?) at her. "I knew that much."

He let the words hang there in the air between them letting Arya decide what to do with them. It would be easy to leave it like that, to not delve further into her memory of shame that used to keep her awake at night for weeks.

Arya crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably, not with Gendry's line of questioning but with the sudden realization that maybe her family was right and she did take this game too seriously. It was the only time she saw all of her siblings at the same time anymore so Arya didn't really care what they thought. Of course, she was going to take it seriously.

"He shot me in the back." Arya finally let out in a rush, her shoulders slumping a little as the words left her. She always felt small admitting those words. She looked up at Gendry curiously, expecting to see him looking at her with pity or smugness but instead he was just looking at her with confusion written all over his face.

"I've never been shot in the back." Arya continued when it became apparent that Gendry was going to be too polite to ask what the hell the big deal was. "No one has ever managed to sneak up on me before." she finished in a small voice that she hated. She wanted to go on to explain that she had just gotten done hiding out in a music shop and someone had turned on the amp right beside her as loud as it would go. Her ears had been ringing so badly she hadn't managed to hear Theon's footsteps and he shot her square in the back. Not only that but she was the first person out on her team. Arya couldn't remember the last year when she wasn't one of the final four players of the game.

No one had let her live it down all year, least of all Theon.

"That sucks." Gendry said with a shake of his head. Arya nodded hers in response.

It had sucked.

It was strange that he had managed to sum up the way she felt about the whole thing with three little words. Everyone else had simply teased her or told her it was just a game. It was nice to have someone just acknowledge that it had hurt without making a big deal about it or diminishing it.

"Do you feel better now that you've had your revenge?" Gendry asked and Arya let out a grateful breath that he wasn't going to make her keep rehashing last year.

"A bit." Arya admitted as she looked over her shoulder to make sure the door was still shut. She shifted closer to him to whisper conspiratorially. "I'll probably still target him for the next few years though."

Gendry let out a startled laugh. "What if he's on your team?" he asked curiously, tipping his head down towards hers.

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it." Arya shrugged causing Gendry to softly laugh again. She realized that she wanted to make him do that more often. It was a surprising, but not unpleasant, realization.

"Well if you need an addition next year give me a call." Gendry said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously as he looked down at her.

Arya swallowed hard as he did so and her pulse began to speed up as she realized how close together they were now standing. His fingers were only a hair's breath away from her own where they rested on the railing and Arya flicked her eyes up to meet Gendry's before she moved her hand a fraction of an inch so that the tips of their fingers were brushing. She bit back a smile when he sucked in a startled breath at her touch.

"I noticed that couples played on separate teams." Gendry suddenly whispered, his voice quavering lightly, pulling Arya's gaze away from his mouth where it had settled.

She nodded; a bit taken aback that he wanted to talk about the game now. But Arya loved to talk about the game so she didn't mind that much doing so at the moment. Her throat felt suddenly dry as she agreed. "That's another rule."

Gendry's bright blue eyes suddenly looked a shade darker as he tilted his head down even more towards her. Gods he was tall. "So, if I kiss you now, will that affect us winning?"

Arya gave a minuscule shake of her head, unsure of what it said about her that she was slightly turned on by the fact that he wanted to make sure he wasn't risking their championship by kissing her. She was suddenly incredibly breathless and she felt like a character in one of those silly romance movies Sansa was so fond of. She managed to draw in enough breath to keep her voice from shaking as she whispered, "The game is over for the year. They can't take the win away from us."

The last word was still lingering on her lips when Gendry leaned down and kissed her.

He rose his hands to cup her face, his fingers resting feather light against her cheeks. Arya placed her hands on his chest, her hands curling into his t-shirt to pull him closer as she pushed up onto her toes so that he didn't have to lean down so far.

Maybe letting him play wasn't such a bad idea after all.

XxX

He could have stayed out there on the porch for hours, kissing or no kissing, but after a little while Arya whispered that they should go back inside before people came looking for her. No sooner had she stepped out of the circle of his arms had the door flung open and Sansa had called Arya in so that she could get a photo of her with Theon for the album.

Gendry was not at all surprised to learn that they had a whole photo album dedicated to their yearly paintball game.

He was a bit surprised when he was even dragged into a few photos, one with the team he had crashed himself onto and one group shot of all of them that Arya's parents took. (Gendry had been very startled when he realized that he had just made out with Arya on the porch while her parents were inside, it left him feeling strangely giddy like a kid who had just gotten away with doing something naughty.) He also had to pose with Jon, who was the only player he had taken out. The man had pulled him to him tightly and for a moment Gendry thought he might have seen what happened outside but then he realized that he was just using him to help him stand upright.

When Gendry was done with the photos he stood awkwardly off to the side and watched the others take theirs, unsure of who to talk to now that Arya was occupied and he had lost sight of Rickon and his cousin. He tried very hard not to think about what that probably meant.

He was content with watching the photos being taken and laughing at the shenanigans of the family, his gaze being drawn more often than not to Arya.

"See something you like?" a familiar voice drawled from beside him and Gendry started in surprise. Ygritte smirked up at him and Gendry squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze. He had little doubt that the smirk wasn't because he had been caught staring at Arya but because Ygritte had caught them doing something else entirely.

"You know, if things work out between you two you won't be able to play on the same team next year." Ygritte mused thoughtfully before grinning at the look on Gendry's face when he felt his blood run cold. She patted him on the shoulder in comfort before she walked off to locate Jon.

The cold chill running down Gendry's spine had very little to do with someone insinuating that he would be dating a person he just met hours ago in a year and everything to do with the way he had seen Arya play the game today. She had been playing this game for over half of her life, he was no match for her that much had already been made obvious. Gendry couldn't shake the cold snake of fear wrapping itself around his chest at the thought of being on the other end of her gun.

Across the room Arya suddenly caught him staring at her and smiled. Gendry wasn't used to seeing an expression on her face that wasn't a glare so it took him a little by surprise. She rolled her eyes at him before being pulled back into conversation with Jeyne and Gendry shook his head at himself as he tried to decide if the thought of playing this insane game of paintball against Arya was making him scared or horny.

Arya met his eyes across the room again and this time she smirked at him as if she could read his thoughts. Gendry took a quick swig of the drink in his hand and tried to act nonchalant as he realized without a doubt it was definitely both.


End file.
